I'm looking into the First Officer Program with Gulfstream International Airlines out of FLL. Its the pay the money, get the training and then 250 hours in the Beech 1900 and then a guaranteed interview.

Could anybody give me any advice on this? I'm wondering if I should do it or not, given the state of the industry. Thanks.

Not a good career move...pay your dues like everyone else does. Buying a seat is no guarantee, and most of these programs really screw you if you wash out. Not to mention you will have a very hard time shedding the stigma that goes with buying your interview.

DON'T DO IT!!!!!!
Do doctors go to a hospital and say "I'll give you $18,000.00 if you'll let me see patients here, and I won't even charge them"? Do attorneys? NO!!!! Neither should pilots! Why pay someone the money that they should be paying you?

And if you go to the site PPGMD posted, do a search. It was discussed to death about a month ago.

Dear ERFly -
Guaranteed interview (ha ha ha) -
Well you will probably fail it, they need to replace you, by a co-pilot with no wages like you were yourself... By accepting such scams, you SCR@W yourself and all others...
That you are enthusiast and desperate to be a (paid) pilot I understand...
But dont fly FOR FREE... you are entitled to fair wages...
And... SCR@W them instead...
(s) Skipper

It's a judgement call on your part. The clear downside is that there will be some resistance on hiring boards -- but it's not an absolute. There are a large number of CoEx, ASA, and Comair pilots that PFT'd and are flying for major airlines right now.

That said, Gulfstream is slightly different in that you are buying flight time, in all reality. If you have very very low flight time right now it might be worth it, but it's entirely different from paying for training at a regional where you pay your money and get your job.

And remember, once you get on with a major, you're done. Barring unfortunate circumstances, you won't interview for another job again, and once you are at a major airline, it's all about seniority. People may whine and call you names behind your back, but at that point, if your seniority is higher than theirs, you'll be the none sitting in the left seat as they grumble.

And in the US, you can only fly until you're 60. If you hit the top of the pay scale three years earlier, that will be a LOT of money difference.

But again, you've got to survey the market and your own situation right now. If you just need flight time you might consider buying an older PA-23 Apache and building a couple-three hundred hours multi-PIC time. I got my first flying job based largely on having saved my pennies, buying a Twin Comanche, and flying it for 800 hours, hunting down IFR all winter one year and shooting approaches all up and down the west coast.

Even then, after getting a job and hauling freight for a year, I decided it wasn't for me. But I'm still happy I did it.

As a former 1900 F0 of Gulftstream (I didn't pay for my job but lost it beacuse of this program) I can tell you that out of a class of 24 PFT students 3 saw their 250 hours in the airplane. The others were failed out in the sim and got back 0.00 dollars in refund. This is the norm.

A class action lawsuit was talked about a few years ago but fell apart before it could get anywhere.

The students who saw the 250 hours in the 1900 were JAA students getting their training for their commercial licences.

The guaranteed interview is just that. If you ever get your 250 hours and get your interview you will be told there is no hiring at the present time. Why hire when there are kids with wealthy parents to buy them turbine time.

Tom Cooper, Gulfstream CEO, is one of the most hated men in the aviation industry.

Gulfstream was one of the worst experiences of my life...... And I'm not talking just in aviation.

Aviation is a tough industry don't make it any harder on yourself than it already will be.

Dear ERFly -
I completely understand your wish to become a pilot with an airline, and that you are willing to take any and all steps to get there...
Let's face it, pilots are among the very few people that "look forward" to go to work when they get up for a flight in the morning... and most, although there are exceptions, maintain that attitude during their entire careers... It is doubtful that you will meet bank employees or sales clerks with such enthusiasm...
xxx
There are a lot of things NOT recommended at the stage you are, to be hired by an airline, among the things, as many have told you here, do not "buy yourself a cockpit seat" by taking the job of someone who would get wages to survive or feed his yound family...
xxx
If aspiring airline pilots would be a little less "enthusiastic" about getting a pilot job, maybe the low wages of new hires would be increased. It is a sad thing to say, but "candidate airline pilots" should unionize theirselves, for the good and bad unions are...
xxx
Do not ever lie about your qualifications, such as flight time... aviation is big, yet very small, and everyone knows everyone, even in the big USA... A lot is done to verify your credentials, that you are not aware, to verify your flight records... If you claim to have landed with N1234X at Podunk Int'l Airport on the 31st of February in 2002, someone may make a random check to verify this claim...
xxx
Do not ever be a "scab"... one of my good Air Force buddies joined Eastern Air Lines when they went on strike in the late 1980s... I knew about it and I did deplore it... and warned him about the consequences...
He never got hired again in the USA (scab list)... He knew, that I went to Argentina after PanAm went bankrupt and that I am in training management and fly the line as 747 captain here, and he sent me a note to assist him to be hired here a few years ago... I told him that his Eastern career, which was short, qualifies him now (maybe) to be a banner towing pilot in Florida...
To me "pay for training" is almost being a scab... What I admit, is that you would take a 737 type rating in a flight academy somewhere, to attempt to qualify yourself for say SWA...
xxx
Maybe this does not apply to the USA, but last year, the son of a high level government official got himself admitted with my airline... he did not last very long, and failed the written and oral tests at the end of ground training, since the instructor pilots do not like this type of hiring technique, because "daddy knows the chairman of the board"...
xxx
My best wishes to you, really, I want you to be succesful, but this, the right way... In aviation, we are all brothers, regardless...
(s) Skipper

Dear Goboeing -
ALPA (representing pilots of many airlines), APA (for AA) and the Teamsters, which represent some cargo air carriers keep "an eye" on strikebreakers... In the case of the Continental Airlines strike (1983 if I am right), and the Eastern Air Lines strike (1988) both against Lorenzo, ALPA issued the list "scabs" in these airlines... What happened to them, very easy...
xxx
When they were hired somewhere else, after a few days in training, they were known as "Lorenzo boys"... and chances are there was an ex-Continental or Eastern Airlines pilot who lost his job and career, who would take "good care" of that new hire... i.e. I instruct often in simulators, and can guarantee you that I can "bust him" on a check ride, no matter how good he is in the simulators... as an example, by some "weight and CG settings" in the simulator setup, making it unstable and unflyable...
xxx
I was with PanAm during and after the Continental and Eastern strike, we had the list of "scabs" issued by ALPA in convenient Jeppesen 7 holes format... when any pilot requested a jump seat ride, we checked the list... if his name did appear on the list, sorry... the cockpit jump seats are occupied... No scabs gets a jump seat on a ALPA or APA airline...
xxx
Some airlines do not want to hire ex-scabs, due to the potential conflicts for crew pairing, I have known of a captain with a large USA cargo airline, who refused to fly with a first officer who was on the "bad list"...
xxx
Hope this clarifies the situation...
(s) Skipper

Some say there is strength in numbers. The unions have evolved this into a "mob rule" mentality.

They have manipulated the work force into thinking that their way is the only way without consideration of each individual's right to work and support their family within their own moral and financial framework.

Pilot SCAB lists are a formal record of plain predjudice and bias towards individuals who have chosen not to become sheep and practice every single union policy regardless of the results and affects on their personal lives.

This abhorant ridiculous behaviour comes from a group that calls themselves "professionals". Obviously this will result in an ever increasing amount of renegade pilots who will do whatever it takes to get work including "pay for training" schemes. If the union wants to stop this, they need to grow up and scrap the scab lists.

This illogical behaviour supports my belief that when it comes to the highest paid, most qualified pilots, it's not *what* you know, it's who you......

The thing to remember is that, unlike what they say airlines is overall a staturated market on the low lvl, so you have people that will do anything for a job, including paying to get it(look at the application fees). So you have to get something to make you diffrent from all the other 1000hr applicants, there comes in who you know.

Take that same 1000hr resueme add in a reference letter from a well known pilot, from a well known company. Bam interview, and a job. Its true, I saw it happen.

About the only thing that these PFT programs do is schudule you to meet someone, they don't give you the job unless those people like you.

The unions are the one single most important factor in the airline piloting profession being what it is....a very good job. A labor groups most powerful weapon is a strike or the threat of a strike....management has many weapons and they are not afraid to use them....anyone in the industry for a while comes to see this. If you are not in the industry...it's easy to sit back and take pot shots at the way unions do business, but I don't see any other way. A scab is like a pedophile....a small minority that does exactly the opposite of what their peers do. For the sake of the good of the whole....your profession as you know it....it's necessary that scabs be discriminated against, if you want to call it that. The vast majority of professional pilots would agree with this and see it as necessary. A small percentage will always go against the grain. Thank goodness there aren't many of them or this profession wouldn't be what it is today...

Engineers generally hate unions and unfortunately some of that rubbed off on me but that's another topic entirely that I don't care to get into.

Back to the original topic of "Pay for Training" program that Gulfstream International Airlines have...

From a standpoint of a person who knows nothing about this program besides what were written in this thread; has no interest in it (I'm past 60 and therefore too old to be an airline pilot anyhow )...Hope someone can help clear up my confusion.

I'm a bit confused about why this thing is so frowned upon by professional pilots. What is so bad about the program? Except for getting times in the military, you pay for your flight time anyway no matter how you do it, either through renting an airplane or what have you...Is the concern about the quality of the training? or the method of getting the training? or the resentment about the guaranteed interview?

From what JetPilot said, only 3 out 24 made it to getting the interview...it looks to me like a scam to screw you out of your money but it doesn't look like they sacrifice quality at all...so hypothetically if you make it through all 250 hours, doesn't that make you cream of the crop and deserves to be hired? Why do the hiring captains distrust the graduates of the program then? I think I'm missing something? Appreciate your help clearing this up.

Simply put, MD11nut, Continental pays Gulfstream to feed them. They are paid to feed them with aircraft that require 2 pilots. The second seat Should be filled with a pilot who is being paid to be there, not someone who is paying to be there. It's not a flight school, it's an airline. There are people in the back who pay their fares to get where they're going, not to ride in a trainer.

Also, I'd be interested to know how this is any different that a university student "paying" for his M.B.A. degree to "buy" your job in middle management? Maybe this is a stupid question with no relation, but if someone could clear it up, that would be great.

I've learned to take a very dim view of PFT programs. It seems wrong for one to pay the company for the priviledge of acting as their employee. I mean, aside from the fact that I don't happen to have a spare $20K lying around, (and refuse to borrow it from someone else.) it just seems unfair, and a deal made in bad faith.

I do have one question though: Are there opportunities to build turbine/multi time the legitimate way?

What is the industry's view on "buying" type-ratings? Is that considered similar to PFT programs?

It depends on who you ask. For some, it's as bad as PFT. But for some, me included, it's not. The main difference is that you don't pay Southwest for the type; it's just a rating they require you to have to be employed there. However, you pay Gulfstream, and formerly Comair, et. al. for the training. It's about who's getting the money. If you had to pay Southwest for the type rating it would be a different story.

As for paying for type ratings, that isnot as clear. I wouldn't do it, I believe if your be hired bya company, then they should properl train you here way. On the flip side, to just get a type rating to make yourslf more marketable, be careful. This works in the corporate world, but not in the airline world. Most airlines require actual flight time in the aircraft to give the type rating any weight during an interview selection.

As far as paying for a type-rating goes, I believe that is a slightly different situation. In the past, companies wanted pilots with a lot of experience "in type". This implied a type-rating. It was the old "Catch 22", fortunately, there is an ever increasing number of companies that realize that it's the overall experience level that is most important, not the specific number of hours that a pilot has in a specific make and model. Would I buy a type-rating? Perhaps, but I would only do it as a last resort. There is no stigma associated with it like there is with a "paying for training" job.
Jetguy

25 B747skipper
: Dear pilot friends - xxx My personal objection to PFT is as follows, opinion of many people like me... xxx (1) You "buy" your PPL or CPL, the program

26 TT737FO
: >>>"What is the industry's view on "buying" type-ratings? Is that considered similar to PFT programs? In the US, the real craze behind "buying" type r

27 NormalSpeed
: "In the US, the real craze behind "buying" type ratings comes from the SWA practice of hiring only type-rated 737 pilots." Yeah, I was sort of wonderi

28 B747skipper
: A type rating is the best thing to buy when you have completed your basic licences... it is the way to prove that you are able to study transport cate